Top-Rated Free Essay
Preview

Comparison on "Song of Songs" by Ellen Gilchrist and "Shopping" by Joyce Carol Oates

Good Essays
885 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Comparison on "Song of Songs" by Ellen Gilchrist and "Shopping" by Joyce Carol Oates
Unconditional Love

What is love? Love is a very special and meaningful word to each human being. Unconditional love is a special type of love that can happen when each person accepts each others without hesitation. In most families, the bond between parents and child is one of unconditional love. However, not all families' relationships are ideal. In the two short stories "Shopping" by Joyce Carol Oates and "Song of Songs" by Ellen Gilchrist, the main characters in each are lacking a sense of real love in their souls. They both experience emptiness in their hearts and are searching for unconditional love to fulfill their lives. Both women in the stories have suffered losses within their families. One has lost the love of a teenaged daughter who has gone astray. The other lost contact with her mother at an early age and is experiencing a lack of belonging.

Mrs. Dietrich, the protagonist in "Shopping," is a divorced woman who is seeking a love response from her 17 year old daughter, Nola. One day before Nola goes back to school, Mrs. Dietrich and she go shopping. The mother hopes that by taking Nola shopping she will become more in touch with her daughter. During the shopping, Mrs. Dietrich keeps looking at Nola while she is enjoying trying on new clothes. Mrs. Dietrich shows a mother's love by seeing Nola growing up and turning into a young woman. However, when Nola discovers her mother staring at her, she shows her hatred on her face immediately and says, "Let me go. For Christ's sake will you let me go." Even though Nola says disrespectful and rude things to her mother, Mrs. Dietrich still forgives her as Nola is only 17 years old and at an unstable age. Nevertheless, when they are leaving the shopping mall, Nola notices that the poor woman who was there when she came to the mall is still sitting there. The woman seems very lonely and helpless in Nola's eyes, and this thought has reminded Nola of how she has treated her mother in the past; eventually she feels sorry about what she has done to her mother. She suddenly realizes her mother is just like that poor woman, lonely and lacking someone who loves her. Therefore, she cries heavily when she gets into the car, and Mrs. Dietrich comforts her as well as cries with her. The unconditional love that the mother shows towards her daughter overcomes the built-up resentment of Nola's rudeness and poor behavior in the past.

Similarly, in the Ellen Gilchrist story, "The Song of Songs," the protagonist, Barrett Clare, changes dramatically in her way of viewing the world. The story happens within one day, Christmas, which should be celebrated by families with the most joyous atmosphere. However, the protagonist does not feel any sense of belonging on the morning of this special holiday. Instead, she gets up late with a "fuzzy feeling of the drugs" which she has been taken in order to sleep. The only emotion that she senses strongly on that special date is "loneliness." Barrett sees this loneliness stemming from her past. "I have always been alone ... I was alone when I was born and I have been alone ever since." Although she lives in a fancy house with her son and her husband, she does not experience any domestic peace and is depressed from the abandoned life that she has been living. This sense of loneliness is due to her abandonment by her birth mother. From the moment that her mother, Amada McCamey, calls her and asks her to come over to see her, Barrett changes her mood immediately, even though she carries a lot of hatred because she feels her mother deserted her as a baby. In other words, she is willing to see her mother as soon as possible and forgive her. Also she wishes to start a new life with her mother right away and feels that no matter what she will face, she will handle it enthusiastically. She changed dramatically because her mother is now waiting for her and she presently exists with her mother's love. Now she is a happy woman, physically and mentally.

Based on the two main characters in both stories, readers can see how unconditional love can influence a person's mood or even her feelings about her heritage. Mrs. Dietrich, in "Shopping," shows her unconditional love towards her daughter. No matter how badly her daughter treats her, she can overcome her anger towards her daughter's rude behavior through love. On the other hand, Barrett, in "The Song of Songs," shows how desperate she desires love to fulfill the loneliness and emptiness in her heart as she knows she has been abandoned when she was young. However, on Christmas Day, she receives her birth mother's phone call asking to come together and meet. From that moment, Barrett suddenly fulfills all her desires to feel a sense of belonging. From this unconditional love she becomes a contented person who can share her happiness with her family without holding any hatred from her past life. Both Mrs. Dietrich and Barrett Clare are able to reach out and enhance their lives through love. The two women both overcome the unhappiness and desperation in their lives. Love has created a bond to link mothers with daughters.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In “Where is Here?” by Joyce Carol Oats, she uses a few different methods of indirect characterization to describe the character who is only known as “the visitor”. The five methods are appearance, speech, actions, reactions of others, and private thoughts.…

    • 658 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Della is a very unselfish and loving woman. She sacrificed her beautiful long hair, which she treasured very near and dear to her heart, to get her husband a nice gift for Christmas. Unlike Madam Loisel who made her husband buy her something very expensive for her own greedy and self centered reasons. Madam Loisel doesn’t care about anyone else but herself, where as Della would go to the ends of the Earth to make her husband happy because of how much she loves him.…

    • 560 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In both poems, the mother and father are working very hard to maintain their family needs and to keep everything in order. Even in all the great things they do to keep the children happy, the children are still often ungrateful in both of these poems. They both work hard all day and all week long to provide for their family. Love in both poems weren’t shown in hugs or kisses but love was showed by the fathers’ actions and the mothers’ actions in both poems. The love is there although it isn’t being shown by affection…

    • 334 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where are you Going, Where have you Been?” the characters Connie, who soon finds herself traveling somewhere she has never been as well as not knowing where that place is or what it means for her, and Arnold Friend , who Connie believes to be an ordinary 18 year-old boy, demonstrate duality through not only their actions, but their appearances as…

    • 66 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    What is Love? Robert Frost once wrote “Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” Love is one of the strongest emotions we feel, yet it is the hardest emotion to ever be understood. “The Song of Songs” by Ellen Gilchrist, explores the theme of love, particularly a mother’s love for her child, and the impact it has on one woman specifically, Barret Clare.…

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Love is different for each and every person. For some, it comes easy and happens early in life. For others, such as Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, it happened much later in life after two unsuccessful marriages. Janie’s grandmother, Nanny raised Janie to be attracted to financial security and physical protection instead of seeking love. Nanny continually emphasized that love was something that was bound to happen after those needs were met; even though Nanny never married. Janie formulates her ideal of love while sitting under a pear tree as a teenager; one that fulfilled her intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and physically. She was then informed that she was to have an arranged marriage to an older man, Logan Killicks, who offered the very security and protection Nanny emphasized. After the marriage failed, looking for change, Janie ran off and married an ambitious, rich and unromantic man named Joe Sparks. Her marriage to Joe quickly became monotonous, and soon enough, Joe died of kidney failure. Later in the novel, Janie meets a poor, young and lovable man named Vergible “Tea Cake” Woods. Tea Cake surpasses her ideal of love. Janie’s view on love did not change throughout the course of the novel; instead her first two marriages engrained her wishes and desires further; all of which were fulfilled in her marriage to Tea Cake.…

    • 1704 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Love: How Is It?

    • 1535 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Life has lots of emotions: happiness, sorrow, guilt, frustration, love, and so on. Love is the one emotion which brings in huge changes in our lives and a different kind of emotion begins with it. How can we describe it? Describing love is very hard because in every phase of life, characterization of love can be varied. In childhood, through romantic films and stories, we started to get feeling that love is passionate and when people will be going through it, life would be full of happiness. In adulthood, people’s perception about love might change. Those who are fantasizing about love realized that it is not only about physical attraction but also about relationship, responsibilities and companionship. When ages grow, some people become optimistic about love, some become pessimistic and some of them are on a way to rediscover love. Definition of love can be changed not only with one’s maturity level but also with his/her cultural values. In Raymond Carver story – ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love’ – the main protagonists Mel and Terri, and Jhumpa Lahiri’s creation – ‘Going Ashore’ – soon to be married couple, Hema and Navin, had enough knowledge about love but they could not still fully realize it. So, they are on their ways to discover the essence of love.…

    • 1535 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Vanity can be exposed as one 's greatest weakness. "Where Are You Going, Where have You Been", a short story written by Joyce Carol Oates, describes Connie 's misconception of beauty as her only value, and also the ways in which Arnold Friend, a potential rapist and murderer, manipulates and takes advantage of Connie 's vanity. Connie is a fifteen year old girl who knows the extent to which her beauty can be used to her advantage. Connie "knew she was pretty and that was everything." However, beauty causes Connie to become vain, and thus gives Connie the misconception that she is more powerful than the boys that are attracted to her. This proves that Connie believes her beauty allows her to transcend above other people, especially boys. As a result, although her beauteous physique can be…

    • 2409 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Desperation, Love, and Torment… The short story "Lessons of Love" by Judith Ortiz Cofer is a perfect example of faulty love, people who abuse love, and people who feel so deep about their love they will do anything for their "partner".…

    • 491 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Reports of serial rapists and murderers are all too common in today’s day and age. In these cases, generally the main focus and intrigue lies with the killer rather than the victim. Once the focus is switched to the victim, we might see all sorts of different scenarios play out. Although Joyce Carol Oates’s, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” was inspired by real life events and reports of a serial rapist murderer, it can also be read as a coming of age story in which we see the victim, Connie, mature and evolve tremendously from the beginning to the end of the story because of the situation she unfortunately finds…

    • 3266 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Oates uses music as Connie’s bridge from the real world into her fantasy world. Throughout the story Oates shows the importance of music in Connie’s life. Connie often listens to music and daydreams about boys. All of her ideas about boys come from the music she listens to. Connie thinks about one of the boys she went out with and feels as though the kind of love they had was the way it is promised in music (Oates 293). The songs she listens to give her everything she knows about romance. When Connie and her girl friend go out for the night Connie meets a boy named Eddie. During her hangout with Eddie, Oates writes that “…her face was gleaming with a joy that had nothing to do with Eddie or even this place; it might have been the music” (Oates…

    • 754 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The definition of love is something that varies greatly among individuals. In E.E. Cummings’s poem “i carry your heart with me”, Cummings effectively conveys that true love is a powerful force that brings complete unity between two people through the use of various literary devices such as capitalization, point of view, form, and imagery to enhance the meaning of his poem.…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is a short story written by Joyce Carol Oates. This popular short story made its debut in 1966. Dependent upon the interpreter, this short story may seem to be based upon many different themes, although my goal is to focus on analyzing the author’s use of stylistic devices such as a recognizable setting, and symbolism that Oates has effectively implemented in this story to convey the most important theme, which is maturity and coming of age. Oates uses many symbolic devices such as; words/thoughts, relationships amongst characters, and even objects to effectively symbolize Connie’s coming of age adventure.…

    • 1152 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Upon Liesel’s arrival to Himmel Street, she has no desire to meet Hans: her new Papa. Hans notices her stolen copy of The Gravedigger's Handbook and offers to teach her how to read and write. From then on, a lively friendship presents itself as “Liesel made her way down to the basement.…

    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first scene exchange between Wendla and Mrs. Bergmann establishes realism by showing a conversation between a mother and daughter about growing up. The scene is set in a living room which is a public space within a private home. There is a sense of frustration in Wendla’s voice when saying, “Why did you make me such a long dress?” (Franzen can be irritatng and frustrating because we, as growing girls, feel as though long dresses are for kids and since there is teen attached to fourteen, we should no longer be considered children. As the scene progresses we see the mother still identifying her fourteen year old daughter as a baby by the way she continually addresses her as baby, “Can I help it if my baby is two inches taller every spring?... I’d love to keep you just the way you are, baby… Baby, baby where do you get these ideas?” (Franzen 7-8). This suggests the mother’s unwillingness to let her daughter grow up. Mrs. Bergmann notices her daughter is growing up but is still not willing to accept this just yet. Wendla, after sassing her mother for a few lines, finally convinces her mother to allow her to wear the shorter dress. Mrs. Bergmann's quick reply, in what is seen as anger, “Put your pinafore back on for heaven sakes!” (Franzen 8). Mrs. Bergmann is seen to be tired of her daughter’s liveliness and decides to give into her daughter rather quickly and heatedly. Wendla ends the scene rather playfully, “Oh, Mother… You’re such a worrier… Don’t be angry, Mommy! No one will ever know” (Franzen 8). Wendla has just gotten her way and I imagine her skipping away with a grin on her face. She has just persuaded her mother that she is old enough to wear a shorter dress for now and how everything will be okay in the end. Having swayed my mother of the same thing I can see realism and naturalism throughout this scene. This conversation I have had dozens of times with my own mother, and it seems to carry a fluid exchange between a mother and child.…

    • 1516 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays